comScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the September-November period, finding that 18.5% of U.S. mobile phone subscribers are now using an iPhone, up 1.4 percentage points from the June-August period. Samsung continues to lead the market at 26.9% on 1.2 percentage point growth, while the remainder of the top five vendors all lost share.

Apple overtook LG for the second spot in last month's survey, and solidified its lead in the latest data on continued growth paired with a small decline by LG.

In looking only at smartphones, which now account for 53% of the U.S. mobile market, Android has continued to expand its lead and now holds 53.7% of the market. The iPhone 5 launch has, however, allowed Apple to continue its growth and the company now holds 35% of the smartphone market as the fall of RIM and Microsoft have increasingly turned the smartphone market into a two-horse race.

Notably, comScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, making it more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.

Hopefully iPhone Sales will continue to grow. Eventually they have to lower the price. I think that is what the less complex uni body design on the iPhone 5 is supposed to do. That and the promise of more colours and sizes may appeal to more users in the future.

Wait on second though you can get some iPhones on a plan for free and the used iPhone market is robust.

iPhones can be gotten cheaper, or at the same price, than the Samsung phones.

That's just simply not true. Or at least depends on what you mean.

You can get cheaper, older iPhones than new Samsung phones. There are also new Samsung phones that are more expensive than the new iPhone 5. But the new iPhone 5 is more expensive than some of the new Samsung phones (e.g. Samsung GS3).

Amazing how Google and Samsung have kept (and gained) their share. Truly a force to be reckoned with..

As Apple as done, and they done it with 1-2 phones. Also, Apple is keeping up with Samsung with only 1-2 phones and is keeping up with Android with 1-2 phones. How many phones does Samsung have and how many phones are now running Android?

Apple wants a triopoly. The issue isn't the handset, it's the ecosystem. It was the windows ecosystem, not windows that took down apple in the 90s (and just a little bit of anti-competitive practices).

'Divide and conquer' is what Apple wants, as well as extending the ecosystem beyond a handset to computer, tablet and TV is. Google/Android is less an issue in the fragmentation of handsets specs OEM and carrier add-ons. However Samsung is capable of taking on Apple directly, and Google with Motorola could if actually make a plan.

Apple wants an Amazon or a Windows/Nokia/Surface/xBox solution that dilutes the Samsung and Google threat. Apple is quite happy competing in a world where it gets the high spend 25% of the market, because no one can compete with it's efficiencies. If Samsung was unchallenged, it could attack the high end by subsidizing it with the (slightly less) low end, and have the mass to shift the power center of the 'mobile ecosystem' to itself. But with a bevy of competitors at the low end of a triopoly or greater space, no one ecosystem can establish that broad base lever point to lock in the long term.

In other words... sucky cheap phones/pads/computers drive customers to change, not upgrade to less sucky. Apple wants to be that change.

That's a lot lower than I thought... Most anyone I see walking around on their phone has an iPhone.

I think the perception is that so many have iPhones because so many phones look like iPhones. Many times I think, "Oh, they have an iPhone too" only to realize a few minutes later that it's a Samsung. It's hard to tell when it's in a case.

What would be illegal is if Apple and Samsung conspired to "split" the market. Since they are actively suing each other, it would be difficult to prove that.

Android is getting entrenched right now. The biggest threat to Android is probably Samsung deciding to fork it to have greater control over it.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by theOtherGeoff

Apple wants an Amazon or a Windows/Nokia/Surface/xBox solution that dilutes the Samsung and Google threat. Apple is quite happy competing in a world where it gets the high spend 25% of the market, because no one can compete with it's efficiencies. If Samsung was unchallenged, it could attack the high end by subsidizing it with the (slightly less) low end, and have the mass to shift the power center of the 'mobile ecosystem' to itself. But with a bevy of competitors at the low end of a triopoly or greater space, no one ecosystem can establish that broad base lever point to lock in the long term.

Exactly. That also partly explains the HTC deal. It is a small weapon in the Samsung battle. However, I'm not sure if Microsoft is capable of being the threat that neutralizes Android. Nokia actually did have a fairly large market outside the US with Symbian. It was popular in emerging markets (where Android now dominates), but their "Windows Phone or Bust" strategy has done the latter.

Pricing is definitely Apple's next steps in order to gain further market of iPhone use. £500 is too much for most people to buy a phone, no matter how many precious materials went into making it or how good the iOS experience is. They need to drop the iPhone to about £350 to 450 in my opinion. With the rumours of two sizes of iPhone this year, they should do 3.5 at £350 and £399 and 4" at £450 and £500 being the top price for an iPhone.

This graph is a bit old though, and Samsung and Apple smartphones are even more popular now. While the graph says Samsung and Apple combined account for 99% of the industry's profits, a more recent analysis now puts them at 106%, meaning all other manufacturers combined are in negative profits.

EDIT: Oh, looks like you were talking about iOS+Android, not Apple+Samsung.

You can get cheaper, older iPhones than new Samsung phones. There are also new Samsung phones that are more expensive than the new iPhone 5. But the new iPhone 5 is more expensive than some of the new Samsung phones (e.g. Samsung GS3).

It can be, but if you negate the carrier discounts, Best Buy are selling a non-contract S3 at $699.99. Assuming that is a base-spec 16Gb version, that is $50 more than the base iPhone 5 without carrier discounts.